


Echolocation

by Silverheart



Series: Bats and Birds [12]
Category: Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 01:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4587348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverheart/pseuds/Silverheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world keeps turning after the death of the Batman.</p><p>1) Tim has refused to do an interview yet again, but it's only a matter of time before he will have to say something.<br/>2) Barbara encounters a certain Cat during her regular visit to the cemetery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Low Duty Cycle Echolocation

“I’m not going to do an interview,” Tim said.

“But Mr. Drake—“

“Leave.” Bruce had taught him that tone of voice. It was getting a lot of practice these days.

The reporter left and Tim slammed the door shut. Thank God Vicki Vale hadn’t tried yet. She wasn’t good at taking no for an answer.

Tim sighed and sat down on his couch, dropping his crutches to the ground. He hated this.

“Tim.”

He jumped, as best he could, anyway. “Geez, Barb, give me some heads up,” he told his desk drawer. He’d stashed an old Bat-com there a long time ago. Barb and computers…

“How? By calling you?”

“With a telephone, maybe?”

She laughed. “You’re such a baby when you’re hurt.”

“Whatever you say. They’ve been trying to talk to Dick, too, haven’t they?”

“They can’t find him.” He threw himself back to lay sprawled on his couch. Talking to his girlfriend via desk drawer, nothing more weird than usual. “You know Dick.”

“So I’m just inept.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, Tim. Get some rest.”

“Eventually the adopted sons of Bruce Wayne will have to say something.”

“It’s the media. Something else will come up soon.”

“Not bigger than this.”

“Records show you were evacuated to Bludhaven, and you were at Dick’s condo for the night. You were injured in some of the riots that happened there that night.”

“Thank you, Oracle.”

“You’re welcome. I also erased any record of your hospital stay in Gotham. As far as anyone else is concerned, you were gone that night. Heaven knows that they’re trying to wring out of you.”

“We were all nearly adults when he adopted us. We could just say…” He shut his eyes, thinking of a lie. He couldn’t. “Bruce Wayne was so concerned about other people that he couldn’t just let orphaned boys waste away. And we would have.” Even him, with his genius ruin of an extended family.

“A bit more poetry would help.”

Tim huffed a quick laugh. “It’s true, though. All this tabloid bullshit keeps coming up, why not some honesty?”

“No one would believe it, Tim. It’s true but they wouldn’t believe you.”

Tim stared at the blankness of the ceiling. “I hate that.”

There was a pregnant pause from his desk drawer. “Bruce always tried to see the best in people, even in all this darkness,” she said, “It’s probably the thing that really set him apart.”

“True.” They’d met indomitable wills, brilliant minds, and many a billionaire. Bruce had been all those things. None of the rest had been like Bruce, though. As a rule, they were unholy terrors. “What _do_ we say, Barb? Because we really will have to say something.”

“What you said. Let them all think it’s a lie. Write whatever they want. Maybe…maybe some people will believe it and it will matter.”

“Because it did to us.”

“Because it did to us,” she agreed.

He twisted painfully to reach for his next dose of pain pills. “No one like you Barb, either,” he said, dry swallowing the pills. Bruce had forced him to learn how to do that.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you get it.”


	2. High Duty Cycle Echolocation

Barb carefully shifted the red rose on her lap so it didn't blow away. The wind had picked up, and a storm was brewing. It made the normally well-kept graveyard a dirtied, dim place, leaves and trash blowing across the graves.

She wheeled down the path and up the hill, into a more secluded area. The Wayne family plots.

It had been two months since the funeral with its empty coffin, three since his death. Until a few weeks ago, her dad had kept a guard around his grave to keep vandals away, but the fire had burned down on the Batman story. The public eye had roved onward.

Leaving Bruce’s grave upon its lonely hill.

Barb followed the turn in the path, and saw a woman clad in black standing in front of the tall tombstone Dick had commissioned.

“Selina,” she said, surprised.

The other woman half-turned. She was clad for thievery, but her hood was down, her goggles mussing her elegant hair. “Barbara,” she answered, quietly, then turned back to the grave.

It was surmounted by an armor-clad angel, his detailed stone wings half-furled. Dick had joked, sadly, about putting a bat on it instead. This was better, Barb thought. When everyone forgot, as the truth got buried in legend and spite and noise, anyone who came here and saw this gravestone would know what Bruce was.

Barb came to Selina’s side and leaned over to place the rose in the stone vase made for this purpose. “Should I leave?”

“No,” she said, “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the funeral. I wanted to, but I had some loose ends to tie up.”

Barb nodded. She never truly understood Bruce’s relationship with Selina— they were opposites, in a way, but there was also an honesty to it that Barb had never seen with Talia. Talia…Talia had loved Bruce, yes, but just as much she had loved his place in her crusade. Selina had just loved Bruce, with no care for his place in her world, even when he was an enemy.

“Do you know who did it, Oracle?” Selina asked quietly. Her clawed fists clenched. “Give me their name.”

“Nothing. I’m sorry.”

“Damn.” Her hands fell slack. “I did get a chance to say goodbye, at least. I didn’t believe him when he insisted that’s what it was, but turns out he was right.” She shook her head. “He was sick, wasn’t he?”

Barb hesitated. No point in hiding it now, not with her. “Yes, badly.”

“I thought so. There was something off in the way he moved, little things. He would turn just a bit, as if listening to something that wasn’t there.” She stepped forward, tracing Bruce’s name gently. It seemed almost as if the angel warrior’s wings had swept out to embrace her. “You silly Bat. If you’d have let me help you…”

“He didn’t want you to get hurt.” It sounded so hollow.

The thief turned to her. Barb could see now that she’d been crying, and it didn’t flatter her. Her eyes were red and her face was puffy. It was strange to see perfect Selina so messy. “I don’t care if I had gotten hurt, as long as he got better, as long as he stayed alive.” There wasn’t a hint of tears in her voice, though. She turned back to the gravestone. “What _have_ you taught these kids of yours?”

They waited in silence for a long few moments, with the wind whistling through the hilltop’s trees, shaking their leaves in a constant chorus. Barb turned to leave. Selina deserved her time alone here.

“Barbara,” Selina said, “If you kids ever need anything, ask me. I know you can find out how. And I mean it.” She stood away from the grave. “It’s not an easy world.”

Barb couldn’t help her reply. “I thought cats walked alone.”

She raised an eyebrow, pulling up her hood. “It got boring.” She sprang away into the trees and was gone within the blink of an eye.


End file.
